Professional Documents
Culture Documents
CBI
1. What is the rationale behind the development of CLIL/CBI?
Using content from other disciplines in languages courses is not a new idea.
CBI is aimed at 'the development of use-oriented second and foreign
language skills' and is 'distinguished by the concurrent learning of a specific
content and related language use skills' (Wesche, 1993). The special
contribution of Content Based Instruction (CBI) is that its not exclusively a
language program, but instead it integrates the learning of language with the
learning of some other content. Often, the content is academic subject
matter, but it can also be about other topics such as sports, music or things
in which students are interested. So, this approach can be viewed as being
neither language learning, nor subject learning, but rather a combination of
both (Marsh, 2008). In addition, CBI promotes negotiation of meaning, which
that we are teaching cultures about different countries, we are going to ask
Juanita Do you know where people eat guinea pig? If Juanita knows the
answer, she is going to say Colombia teacher. In this way if the student does
not know the teacher replace the lack of vocabulary. Later, we can make
students listen an audio or a video related with the subject or showing
pictures. Also, we can use a map making our students locating some
countries. Another important activity is using group work and team-building
techniques. Besides, the teacher can do an activity in which students write or
read. So, we can introduce the implicit grammar for example, present simple
tense or continuous tense. Finally, it is important to do a task or organize a
homework.
4. Which CBI model is more suitable to be used in a setting like Pasto?
All models would be suitable to be used, because each one of them have
their special characteristics to teach, either with academic, specific purposes
or integrating all the skills. In a setting like Pasto it would be more suitable
the Theme Based Model because it is usually found in EFL contexts. Theme
based CBI can be taught by an EFL teacher and here, the teacher can create
a course of study designed to unlock and build on their own students'
interests and the content can be chosen from an enormous number of
diverse topics. There are textbooks that can be used for theme based CBI
classes which usually contain a variety of readings followed by vocabulary
and comprehension exercises. These can then be supplemented with
additional information from the Internet, newspapers and other sources. It's
possible to create some really interesting classroom materials as long as the
need for comprehensibility is not forgotten.
Lexical approach
1. What are chunks and what is their importance in the LA?
Chunks are multi-word units which play an important role in Secod
Language Learning. The creation and the knowledge of the chunks
have an important role in the Lexical Approach because through
them learners would have a fluent speech and they would develop a
grammatical competence. Besides, the appropiate use of chunks
combined with the grammatical component help learners to create
a pragmatic fluency in the language learning.
2. Is the theory of language behind LA modern?
The theory of language of the lexical approach is modern behind LA because
this approach add another level of structure which is named multi-words
units. Traditionally, the elements of the system only included lexical items as
well as grammatical units. The lexical approach innovate Chomskys theory
which emphasized the capacity of speakers to create and interpreted
sentences that are unique. On the other hand, the lexical approach holds
that only a minority of spoken sentences are entirely novel creations and
that multi-words units functioning as chunks form high portion of the
speech heard in everyday conversation.
3. What are the limitations in the objectives of LA?
One of the limitations that we find in the objectives of the LA is that there is
not a description of specific equips which help learners to identify and
discover the chunks in written texts. Also we think that the learning and the
use of chunks will be a tedious process to some students because it will be
similar to the learning of large vocabulary lists. Finally this approach limitates
learners to the learning and use of specific chunks which is just a part of the
foreign language learning.
4. What is, you opinion, the relationship between lexis and
grammar?
Vocabulary is typically seen as individual words whereas lexis is a concept
which consist of collocations, chunks, and formulaic expressions. It includes
certain patterns that were associated with the grammar of language. The
relationship between lexis and grammar is that through recognizing certain
grammar structures as lexical items, they can be introduced much earlier,
without structural analysis or elaboration.
5. How feasible is to apply LA in public schools in Pasto ? Why?
The lexical approach is very feasible of applying in our city because students are
accustomed to a model of education based on the memorization of lists of
vocabulary and also the explicit part of the grammar. For this reason we consider to
be viable the application of this approach because the lexical approach is based in
the learning of chunks which are unit-words such as collocations and lexical phrases
that students use in order to adquire a fluent speech. Thus, as we find a lot of
chunks in the written texts learners are going to memorize them as they memorize
grammar rules and vocabulary lists.